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CNI

Here’s a quick update on a sale in my portfolio. Sales are always hard, especially when times are good and investors are riding the coattails of one of the best performing bull markets in modern times. When things are rosy, we tend to feel that the good times will continue forever. How many times have we heard from various commentators in the media that this market will never go down, or we will never see a financial crisis in our lifetimes. It is this kind of hubris that sends me running for the hills.

Regardless, its the insane valuations for some of the stocks that I regard as a selling point. What lies ahead…can the company keep its revenues and earnings rising year after year? This particular sale has been a hard one as I consider it an extremely strong company and want to continue holding for a long time. But you know what they say about falling in love with your investments…

Canadian National Railway Co (CNR.TO)(CNI) is the second largest publicly traded railroad company in North America. The company commands an impressive 20,000 miles of rail network and the only railroad serving three coasts. The following system map image demonstrates the scale and reach of Canadian National.

Canadian National Railway Co System Map

Canadian National is one of the best run companies in the industry. The company continues to churn out impressive numbers year after year. Qualitatively, the CN also maintains an impressive strategic advantages such as the Chicago bypass, which other railroads have to face and deal with the delays.

Railroads are the pulse of the economy. While crude shipments are on their way to a recovery thanks to the rise in oil prices, coal remains in a secular downtrend, although coal plays a very small role and CN escapes the issues faced by other competitors in the industry. CN operates at a great margin and has demonstrated to be the best in class.

Canadian National Railway Company (CNR.TO/CNI) announced a 20% increase in its cash dividend. The quarterly cash dividend will increase from C$0.3125 to C$0.375 per share and payable on Mar 31, 2016 to shareholders on record as of Mar 10, 2016.

Including today’s announcement, CN has declared annual increases to its dividend 20 consecutive times, averaging 17 per cent per year, since its initial public offering of shares in 1995. The annual dividend rate goes up from C$1.25 to C$1.50. Yield going forward based on today’s closing stock price is 2.10%.

Over the course of past few months, I have been featuring the Sector Overview series, where I take a sector (or an industry) and provide some basic/background information about the sector. In addition, I present the major companies in the field and profile at a high level comparing the peers. These articles are supposed to be what the title claims – an overview. It is up to each investor to compare and contrast individual companies and decide which one to pick if needed. These articles have garnered a lot of attention from readers (Thank you once again 🙂 ) and the feedback really helps me in making this a better blog for more quality articles. Lately, I have been thinking on the other side of these investment opportunities and decided to highlight the sectors to present the threats and challenges in current environment. I begin this series with a Sector Overview Challenges – Railroads.

Caveat: Before I get into the details of the challenges faced by the sector, I would like to highlight that this is by no means a recommendation to short the stocks. Remember each investment carries risk, and all I am trying to do with this article is to try and highlight the existing risks in current market conditions and during this part of the economic cycle. These conditions may disappear in due time as the economy goes through its ups and downs.

Canadian National Railway Company (CNR.TO) (CNI) is the second-largest railroad company in North America. The company operates 20,000 miles of network serving three coasts — Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf coast. CN operates in one of the widest moat industries — railroads. The company has a diversified traffic volume including intermodal, petroleum & chemicals, grain & fertilizers, forest products, metals & minerals, automotive, and coal.

The company is a dividend challenger having raised dividends for 18 consecutive years and has a 5-yr CAGR of 15.2%. The company has the best in class operating margins beating out giants such as UNP, NSC and CSX.